


In Plain Sight

by taibhrigh



Category: The Losers (2010), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-09
Updated: 2012-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-29 05:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taibhrigh/pseuds/taibhrigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos Alvarez and Jake Jensen meet under completely different conditions--Carlos is an FBI agent and Jake might just be a criminal. Can coffee and romance bring the two men together?</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Plain Sight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Thanks to [siluria](http://archiveofourown.org/users/siluria) and [tarlan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tarlan) for the beta.

~~~***~~~

Jake Jensen had graduated from high school at sixteen and started college that summer. By the time he was twenty he had two degrees under his belt and had enlisted in the US Army. He hadn't been military-enough for his commanding officers and had finally taken a discharged after his fourth year.

That had been okay though, the military had given him muscles and a new skill-set. Plus there had been the few jobs with the NSA and a few more with the CIA both during and after his time in the service. If a guy named Lynch came calling again he was going to live by that old adage and "just say no."

Another set of new skills had been added to his resume along with a list of not so legal contacts. Add in a secret identity and he was now one of the world's best retrieval agents. The FBI was calling him a thief, but whatever.

To the outside world, Jake Jensen was simply stuck in a job below his abilities as if he didn't have the drive to do more now that he was out of the service. Most said at least he had a job, even if it was as a coffee barista.

No one actually knew he owned the small café and the loft on the second and third floor. The other employees just thought he rented it from the kind-hearted coffee shop owner. The manager of the café didn't even know who she reported to. Email was a wonderful thing.

~~~***~~~

Carlos Alvarez had wanted to be in the army since he was seven years old. His natural talent with a rifle and tracking abilities had taken him far. He had been one of the best snipers the army had seen, but after one too many field assignments going sideways and units he couldn't trust to have his back Carlos had not re-upped. He'd taken his hazard pay and gone to college and then into the FBI. Tracking people was the same no matter the setting--it was all about spotting the signs in the obscure.

He was still a trained sniper. Still called on in rare circumstances when he was the closest sniper at hand. He kept his field rating where it needed to be and everything, but his main focus now was catching criminals. Originally he'd been assigned to Missing Persons. He'd lasted a year before he felt drained from having to tell parents their child was not coming home. He transferred to Serial Crimes where he thrived with one of the highest closure rates. It got him assigned to the task force that was charged with catching the criminal known as Hermes.

Carlos wasn't sure who on the team had given the yet unidentified thief the nickname but it had stuck. He closed the notebook as he got up from the small table in the coffee shop. There was more to this thief than what was in any of the case files. He knew for a fact that one of the _stolen_ paintings had been returned to a family that had reported it stolen during World War II. No payment had ever been made by the family for its return. It was as if Hermes was returning stolen property and not stealing it. In this instance, Carlos agreed with him and that just made things more confusing with this case.

"No refills today?" the barista asked.

"Not today, Jake."

~~~***~~~

Jake had had a good laugh over the name on his FBI file. _Hermes_. The Greek god most often associated with shepherds, poets, and athletes. He'd gotten the name because someone had written that it seemed like he got into a building _as if the he had wings on his feet_. However, it was the lesser known things about Hermes, like he was also the god of boundaries, more importantly the travelers who crossed them, and the cunning of thieves that had Jake holding back from hacking into the FBI just to change the name to something cooler.

No, the only reason Jake had for hacking the FBI and military databases, at least lately, was the man that was about to walk out of his coffee shop.

Carlos Alvarez. Jake knew everything that the files could tell him. Even things that were classified. Carlos had earned the moniker Cougar while in the army, but its use had ceased when the man had switched careers. Jake though, thought the name fitting even now as he watched Carlos leave. Part of him itched to call the man Cougar.

It was probably a bad idea to have a crush on one of the agents investigating him, but the man was hot and Jake was tired of being alone.

~~~***~~~

Out of the blue Carlos received a tiny stuffed cougar with a caduceus medal around its neck. It had been delivered by inner-office post which meant it had been scanned as safe before the package had been placed on the edge of his desk.

The only things he was expecting were case files so the box had been a surprise. The contents had not been expected either. He had stared at the small plush toy for five whole minutes before sending it down to the crime techs. It had come back a day later with a report clearing it of bugs or any other type of evidence. Carlos wasn't even sure it had been sent by Hermes, but what else could explain the little caduceus dog tag?

"Weren't you a medic?" one of his co-workers had asked, which was partially true. He'd had medic training while in the army and had patched up numerous squad mates.

Carlos didn't believe that was it, but it didn't seem like a taunt either. He picked up the little plush animal and looked at it again. That's when he noticed the little embroidered patch on one of the hind legs--it was the logo for the Wilderness Foundation. He had been one of the agents to bring in the CEOs.

It had been a big scandal. Several charities, the Wilderness Foundation included, had lost huge amounts of money due to fraud and embezzlement scandals run by their bank's CEOs.

Carlos finally shrugged and sat the little cougar under the lamp on his desk. Maybe it was all just a coincidence...if only he believed in those.

What Carlos wouldn't know for a few more days was that each charity that had lost money received large anonymous donations in the same amounts.

~~~***~~~

The stuffed toy had probably not been a good idea. Nope, not one of his better ideas, but Jake knew it was sitting on Carlos' desk after having its fluff-filled life patted down, scanned, and x-rayed.

One would think the FBI would have better firewalls. Then again, Jake was using NSA and CIA encryptions to get around things.

He was on a break from his café duties and sitting at one of the many tall round tables planning a little trip to a company's offsite server farm when Carlos came into the coffee shop. Today it was packed as all the stores in the area were having sales and the shoppers were out and about.

Jake waved Carlos over and offered him the second seat at his table.

"Busy," Carlos said.

"Shoppers," Jake answered. Over the last few months he'd learned that Carlos was an economy of words type person but the few times they'd shared a table the other man had not minded that Jake tended to ramble about everything and nothing. It was a nervous habit that had worked in his favor as it made people not think twice about what Jake had really been trained to do.

"Hey, Serena!" he called. "A chocolate-cinnamon café con leche two percent no sugar or whip."

"One Spanish hottie coming up."

Jake did not blush. "Ignore Serena," he said. He saw Carlos smirk and was willing to bet the man was going to ask a question.

"Do all the regulars have nicknames associated with their drinks?" Carlos asked.

"It's possible."

~~~***~~~

Carlos enjoyed flirting with Jake. The younger man was likable and always cheerful. Carlos looked forward to it on bad days. Today was a bad day. The case he'd been working on ended in the death of two innocent bystanders. While Carlos himself hadn't been responsible for the deaths, he felt that he should have been able to prevent them.

When he walked into the café Jake was not there, but with a smile Serena directed him upstairs. He'd never been to Jake's apartment and he really hoped the other man wouldn't mind.

Jake answered the door with a towel wrapped around his waist and a toothbrush in his mouth. He stuttered out something that sounded like _make yourself comfortable_ before bolting up a flight of stairs to what Carlos supposed was the bedroom.

Carlos couldn't help himself, he laughed. It was just what he had needed. He walked into Jake's apartment and looked around. There was a large kitchen with a breakfast bar and stools. Carlos opted to sit at the bar.

Jake didn't have a lot of things on display, but the home looked comfortably lived in. That was the only way to describe it, though the other man was not messy, as Carlos would have guessed just on the personality quirks he'd seen. There was a long wooden shelf hanging on the wall with small bottles filled with sand, dirt, or rocks. They were obviously from places Jake had visited. By the names on a couple of them, Carlos knew they were in war zones. That probably explained the bull tattoo he'd seen on Jake's arm. Jake had been in the military. They had never really talked about their pasts.

Then there were all the old computers--balanced on top of each other like art--sitting below a row of movie posters. The center poster being for a movie Carlos had never heard of called _Hackers_. It had the tagline of _boot up or shut up_.

There was a laptop on the dining room table and at least three gaming systems connected to the television, but no real computers and monitors. For some reason, Carlos had envisioned Jake having a desk filled with computer stuff.

He heard Jake come down the stairs and then the blond man was standing within feet of him. Jake was barefoot, wearing what Carlos could only call a love-worn pair of jeans and gray t-shirt covered in math formulas and equations.

"Hi," Jake said.

Carlos gave Jake a smile and returned the welcome.

Jake moved into his kitchen. "Coffee, tea, soda, water...beer?" he offered. "I'm thinking this is more of a beer moment and not one of the others."

Carlos didn't answer, just let Jake grab two bottles from his refrigerator and open them, passing one to him.

Jake leaned across the countertop, one elbow propped up with his head in hand while the other hand brought the bottle of beer to his mouth. Carlos was fascinated by the other man.

~~~***~~~

Jake was nervous. Carlos was in his apartment. The man was sitting at his kitchen counter drinking a beer. He'd come to him because he was having a bad day and needed cheering up. They were friends, in the way that people who saw each other almost everyday and said hello or asked about the other's day. They'd even gone to the pizza place down the block together a few times.

Carlos had flirted with him, and he'd flirted back.

Though now was not the time to be thinking about dragging Carlos up to his bedroom and doing wicked, wicked things to the long haired, brown-eyed Spanish man sitting on one of his kitchen stools. Jake put the brake on his thoughts again.

Food. He should make Carlos lunch. "Turkey or ham?" he asked.

Carlos paused the bottle mere centimeters from his mouth. "I like them both."

Jake smiled and put his beer bottle down on the counter before turning to the fridge. "I'll make us lunch while you tell me what brings you to my kitchen counter."

Carlos gave him a speculative glance.

Jake snorted. "Yes, I can cook."

It was one of the things his grandmother had taught him. It was also why he had a state of the art kitchen and every appliance possible. Plus, ever since the army he liked things fresh. He pulled out all sorts of ingredients before slicing four pieces of bread from the loaf he had baked that morning.

"You can start talking while you slice potatoes," he said, placing two potatoes and a slicer in front of Carlos.

Carlos started slicing and talking. As he cooked, Jake heard many of the things he'd already read in Carlos' files and now he could call the other man Cougar just like he wanted.

Then Carlos told him about his latest case and the two bystanders. A mother and her young son. Wrong location, wrong time. It was all just bad timing.

"I know you know this already," Jake said, turning off the stove and coming around the counter to stand in front of Carlos. "It wasn't your fault."

Jake let Carlos pull him in closer. Let the other man set the pace of the events that might happen. The kiss was soft, light, and exploratory. Carlos tasted like spicy citrus, that was the only way he could describe it and Jake wanted the kiss to continue even as Carlos broke it.

"My apologies," Carlos said.

"Why?" Jake asked. "If I hadn't wanted you to do that, I could have stopped it."

This time Jake leaned in and kissed him.

~~~***~~~

Carlos hadn't gone to Jake's home with the intention of having sex. At first he thought he was taking advantage of Jake, of the other man's generosity as he used Jake's body for his own release. That changed some time between the delicious turkey, bacon, cheddar, and avocado panini and the homemade fries, the shower sex, and breakfast. Now Carlos thought maybe he had a boyfriend.

Jake took his breakfast plate and put it into the dishwasher and started the machine. "So I should probably tell you something," Jake started before steaming milk for another coffee.

Carlos wasn't sure if he was surprised or not to know that Jake had his own espresso machine, but the steamed milk added to the Kona coffee that was part of Jake's private stash was a perfect addition to breakfast.

"So here it is. I mean it's not, well, maybe. Look I don't. Maybe it's possible that I own the café downstairs and no one knows, okay. And I'd like them not to know, you know? And, I'm kind of well off. Math pays better than most think and then there was my time in the army..."

Carlos just lifted his eyebrow.

"Did you already know that? How did you know that? Are you FBI'ing me?"

Carlos laughed. He couldn't help it. "I have not been FBI'ing you," he said. "I am trying to figure out what you just said in those ten seconds."

"Huh?"

Jake repeated everything and Carlos was almost sure it was exactly word for word and still only took ten seconds. This time he got it though. Jake had money and owned the coffee shop and building and didn't want anyone to know.

"Math?"

"I like math."

"Field tech?" Carlos took a guess on what Jake's job in the army was.

"Yeah, something like that."

Carlos smiled. "Have dinner with me?"

Jake froze and Carlos enjoyed the look of complete shock on the other man's face.

"Like a date?"

"Yes."

~~~***~~~

He was dating Cougar. Jake liked calling Carlos that and the other man always gave him a tiny smile when he did. He was dating Cougar and Jake was positive that dating an FBI agent was a bad idea. A very bad idea, but he couldn't stop. He didn't want to stop. So far he'd been able to still carry out his retrieval jobs, but he was taking less and less of them and the last three had all been legal even. He didn't want Cougar to get in trouble if it should ever come out that his boyfriend was the very criminal they were searching for.

Jake didn't need the money. He had the coffee café which had recently branched out to serving more than just pastries and bagels. Now there were light breakfast meals, soups, and sandwiches. The sandwiches had been Cougar's idea after sampling three or four of Jake's kitchen creations.

He had several contracted web-based security jobs and those paid well. There were also the math proofs that were sent his way as a second or third set of eyes to prove the equations were done correctly. Those didn't pay a lot but he'd always done those for fun. Cougar had even seen the large whiteboard that stretched around two of the walls of the room that Jake used as an office.

Jake really didn't need the money. If he was honest with himself, he did the retrieval jobs for the excitement and to help people. He could do that legally. Plus, he had been investing and saving since before he'd gone into the military. The more he thought about it, the more Jake knew what he needed to do.

He was in love. He wanted to wake up with Cougar next to him every morning. He wanted the other man to come home to him every evening. The nights they went out together were the best--whether it was to the movies or just a walk.

The first Saturday they'd gone to the local farmer's market together was the first time he'd seen Cougar in his leather cowboy hat. It was a drool worthy image. Now the hat lived on a hook next to Jake's door as Cougar always stayed over on the weekends.

Jake wanted Cougar to move in with him. He needed to come clean to the other man.

He was afraid he was going to lose everything.

~~~***~~~

Carlos noticed Jake had been nervous over the last few days, jumpy even and definitely a little more clingy than normal. Now the other man was pacing back and forth in front of him.

The weekend had started out great. A quiet dinner and sex on Friday evening. The farmer's market on Saturday morning followed by lunch at a small bistro and then an early evening movie and another night wrapped around each other. It had all been perfect until this morning after breakfast.

Now Jake had him sitting at the dining room table while he paced back and forth holding a dark manila file folder.

"I'm not who you think I am," Jake started. "I mean, mostly I am. I mean, I haven't lied to you about anything. Just sort of forgot to mention something. Something big."

Jake didn't say anything for another minute, just stood there staring out the window and avoiding eye contact with him. Carlos stood up from the table and walked toward Jake. He took the folder and tossed it on the table behind them before dragging Jake's head down to kiss the taller man.

"Are you involved with someone else? Married? Have a child?" Carlos asked, trying to get a reaction from Jake. He wasn't disappointed.

"What?!? No! What?" Jake stepped back. "I...what?"

Jake walked to the table and sat down in the seat that Carlos had vacated. He twirled the folder around on the table several times. "It's worse than that."

Carlos walked over to Jake again. This time he straddled Jake's thighs and sat down, wrapping his hands around the back of Jake's chair and trapping the other man in place. He kissed Jake until they both needed air. Until Jake was panting and they were both hard. It had not been Carlos' intention to get them both hard, just to distract Jake from his worry. Mission accomplished.

Jake eased back while pushing a little on Carlos to get him to move back.

"I would love to, you know, continue with that. More than anything honestly, but I need to get this out."

~~~***~~~

Jake leaned his head forward to rest it on Cougar's shoulder. He wasn't prepared for Cougar's whispered, "I already know."

He froze. Jake knew that Cougar knew that he was a hacker, had been a hacker for the army, the NSA, and he'd mentioned the name Lynch in passing and Cougar had growled. Cougar did not like the CIA.

"You know what?" Jake asked quietly, pulling away from Cougar to look the other man in the eye.

"That you should shred whatever is in that folder if it's going to incriminate you."

Jake didn't know what to do or what to think. He should have stuck with the kissing. Then there might have been coming and showering and avoiding this, but he hadn't wanted to avoid this until now. Until he was actually faced with everything his imagination could come up with.

His mind brought back the nightmare of Cougar arresting him and then never getting to see the other man again except for at the trial that would throw him in jail. _Don't go there,_ he told himself.

Carlos shifted forward on his lap. "Stop worrying," he said. "I know."

"What exactly? I feel like we're on different pages of the same book and I'm not sure which one of us is running behind."

Carlos gave him a small smile. "You are," he said, kissing him on the nose.

Jake took a deep breath and then slowly let it out. "Look here it is, I'm the one you call Hermes. Which, seriously, who came up with that name anyway?" he said it all in one breath and gave Cougar a chance to puzzle it all out because he wasn't repeating it again.

All Cougar said was, "I know,"

"Are you going to arrest me now?"

"No."

"Are you going to arrest me later?"

Cougar laughed and kissed him until he could barely think straight.

"No, my non-winged-footed love," Cougar said, "I am not going to arrest you."

Jake sighed. "Just so you know, I've stopped."

"I know."

Jake was confused.

~~~***~~~

Carlos chuckled at the look on Jake's face. It was the cute, perplexed look that Jake got sometimes when a grandmotherly-type told him he was a nice young man. This time he knew it came with an unspoken question so he answered it. "You do not talk in your sleep," he said, leaning forward to kiss Jake lightly on the nose.

"I, umm, I mean. Carlos." Jake slumped back in the chair. "I'm confused," Jake finally admitted. "You don't appear to be mad at me. I figured there would be something negative. Not kissing. I like the kissing. I really like the kissing, but I don't understand."

Carlos reached up and removed Jake's glasses, putting them on the table before running his fingers gently over Jake's face. "I am not angry. I will admit to being a little upset when I first realized who you were," Carlos admitted aloud.

Honestly he'd been more pissed at himself for not piecing it all together sooner. Granted Jake had not waved it under his nose. No, the other man had been slowly tightening the reins on everything related to Hermes and soon even the task force was at a loss for where Hermes had gone.

Carlos knew his meeting with Jake had been coincidence and not some big setup. There were all sorts of people in and out of Jake's coffee shop every day and he'd just been one of them. And, this was the important thing, he had started the flirting between them, not Jake. The first time he had done it had been purely reflex. The small giddy smile on Jake's face, the one he had never seen until that moment, had been something he'd wanted to see again. It had taken nearly three weeks before Jake had started to flirt back and the first time he did was the first and only time he'd ever seen Jake blush. That image was firmly planted in his memory.

No, it wasn't that he thought Jake had set it up or was setting him up. What had pissed him off was that he hadn't noticed that whenever a case wasn't going well and he mentioned it to Jake, some piece of evidence or data or something would be found soon after. The anonymous lead would help them catch whomever was responsible; and as far as Carlos had been able to tell all of the _evidence_ had been obtained legally. It took the stuffed cougar on his desk for him to even think about Jake and his hacking abilities--something he had witnessed as he'd watched Jake test the security of some company's firewalls for one of his contract jobs.

He hadn't truly started piecing it altogether until Hermes suddenly went quiet and hadn't been heard from in nearly five months. At that point he and Jake had been dating for almost two months. As other cases hit their desks, less and less was seen of Hermes. Then the Bureau had finally put the Hermes case on the back burner until the thief hit again as all other leads had dried up.

It wasn't until one Saturday when he hadn't had the pleasure of waking up next to Jake and had to meet the other man in the park that the idea of Jake even being Hermes came to him. He'd watched Jake and several other people scale, jump, run, and flip off the side of buildings, stairs and trees. It had been almost awe-inspiring as Jake effortlessly ran, jumped and twisted his body in the air before gracefully landing back on the ground...like he had wings on his feet.

Carlos had put that together with the travel, the computer skills, the ex-military background and almost dropped to the ground on his ass when the thought that Jake was Hermes first came to him. He'd pushed the thought away as Jake ran up to him smiling and planted a kiss on his cheek. Jake was not a criminal. The other man cared too much for the people around him to steal from them.

Three days later Carlos was going over every single Hermes case. The dates on some were when he knew Jake was still in the military. If Jake was Hermes and the case ever went to court, there would be no connecting him to those particular cases--one of the other three letter agencies would see to that. In the fifty-seven case files associated to Hermes, twelve occurred when Jake was still military; thirty-eight of them, when you looked deep enough, no actual theft had occurred. All property or materials had actually been stolen by the company or person holding it and the items had been returned to their rightful owners--even if that was still being decided through a court case. In the remaining seven, Carlos still didn't know how to classify those.

What Carlos did know was Jake would make a very good FBI agent. He also knew that after working for the CIA and NSA Jake would never work for the government again.

"You're a good man Jake," he said, taking the man's face in his hands. "And I fell in love with you the day the café's espresso machine decided to turn into a volcano."

Jake's grin was worth it all. "I love you too, you know?"

Cougar leaned in and kissed Jake.

"Oh thank god," Jake said. "Back to the kissing."

~~~***~~~

A year later and Jake would still admit it, he was still somewhat confused by Cougar letting him go. After that day where Cougar beat him to the punch, so to speak, they had never discussed it again and Jake had laid Hermes to rest and focused on his coffee café and his relationship with Cougar. He still sent the FBI little packets of info on open cases--an anonymous source. Cougar would give him a look that Jake considered exasperated-love but never told him to stop and there was always the unspoken _"and don't get caught"_ in there somewhere.

That day--the day Jake always referred to as _the confusing conversation day_ \--Cougar moved in with him. Living with Cougar was even better than he had ever dreamed. Unless the other man was out on a case they woke wrapped around each other in some fashion or the other.

Cougar even let him wear the hat on occasion. It had become something special between them. Something that other people didn't get and he wasn't ever going to explain.

Jake had really loved having Cougar around when Lynch came calling. The gun to the man's face right before the door had slammed shut had been awesome. He'd given Cougar a ten out of ten on the threat and then a blow job while Cougar leaned against the wall next to the door. He'd worn Cougar's hat down to the café that afternoon.

Now and again, Cougar would help out when the café was busy. The espresso machine loved him. Jake was beginning to hate it. It had done the whole volcano of beans thing to him again. Now he sweet-talked the damn thing and Cougar just smirked at him, but business was better than ever. So good in fact that they had decided to run away together for two whole weeks. No FBI, no hacking, which did not mean no guns or computers in their luggage. Just no work allowed.

Their first vacation together was a cruise that was set to sail out of Miami the next morning. They'd come in a few days early to see the city. It was warm and fun and the foodie in Jake was loving it.

"Cougs," Jake called from their hotel room balcony. "Cougs!"

He felt Cougar come out onto the balcony. He tilted his head and lifted his arm to stretch it out to point. "Umm, that is a helicopter carrying an armored truck, right?" he asked. "I mean I know I had a couple of those frozen alcohol concoctions at lunch but honestly that's not enough alcohol for dancing pink elephants let alone a flying armored truck, right?"

He felt Cougar's body shake in a silent chuckle. It no longer took Cougar a minute to puzzle out his quick talk.

"Wow, it hit the donut. Poor donut. Poor building. And that's definitely gunfire," he added.

"News," was all Cougar said as the helicopter flew out of sight.

Jake followed Cougar back into their suite. "This city sure is weird," he said, sitting next to Cougar on the small cushioned bench at the end of the bed. Cougar turned the TV on and found a local news channel.

They never finished watching the news report. Neither man knew who started the roaming hands but soon they had both been undressed and stretched out on the bed and the news had just been background noise. Something to tell the people back home about.

The cruise, well most of that they were keeping to themselves.

~end~


End file.
